During the 2016-2017 season Ms. Lindstrom is engaged as Brünnhilde with Opera Australia where she will perform in her first full Ring Cycle. She makes another role debut as Die Färberin in Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten in a new production with the Staatsoper Hamburg under the baton of Kent Nagano, and joins the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under Pietari Inkinen as Brünnhilde in excerpts from Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. As Turandot, she makes house debuts with the Deutsche Oper Am Rhein and China National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and returns to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Wiener Staatsoper.
Her extraordinary Salome with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the United Kingdom during the 2015-2016 season was hailed by The Times as “one of the finest living exponents of this fearsomely taxing role. She has the seductive looks, the cruel half-smile, the mesmerizing stage presence and, above all, the vocal range and cutting edge.” Additional performances of Salome during the season included engagements with the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Detroit Symphony, under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, and in fully staged performances with the Wiener Staatsoper and the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Italy. She performed the title role of Elektra with Maestro Yannick Nézet-Seéguin and Opéra de Montréal, and the title role of Turandot with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and Wiener Staatsoper, Gustavo Dudamel conducting, in addition to a return engagement to The Metropolitan Opera, and a concert performance with the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker with Dan Ettinger conducting. In addition, she was heard alongside the Vienna Philharmonic as Turandot in Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation in cinemas worldwide.
Known the world over for her performances as Turandot, which she has sung well over one hundred times, Ms. Lindstrom has portrayed the Ice Princess on the most important stages around the globe, including with The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opera Australia, De Nederlandse Opera, Les Chorégies d’Orange, and Arena di Verona in Italy, among many others. Opera News said “Lindstrom could pin us to our seats with sheer volume and she commands the stage with practiced imperial gestures, but Lindstrom understands that a great Turandot needs to find the moments when the character’s vulnerability can be revealed. The soprano accomplishes just that, delivering in Act III soft yet insistent legato phrases…We saw the tender heart beneath the glacial, dragon assoluta exterior.”
A leading interpreter of Wagner’s heroines, she portrayed Senta in Der fliegende Holländer with San Francisco Opera, Polish National Opera, New Orleans Opera and Utah Opera, both Elisabeth and Venus in Tannhäuser with the Greek National Opera, and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre with Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy, where Der Opernfreund proclaimed “With the American Lise Lindstrom a sleek powerhouse entered the stage….A magnificent ‘Hojotoho.’”
Lindstrom’s performances of the title role of Salome have taken her to the stages of the Wiener Staatsoper, San Diego Opera, Dallas Opera, Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro Carlo Felice, Detroit Symphony, and in concert with the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. “Lise Lindstrom is a Salome to be reckoned with,” hailed The Opera Critic. “Here’s a soprano with a model figure and the ideal deportment to depict Strauss’ teenage princess. Not only has she the capacity to soar over the composer’s most intense orchestration with ease and beauty, but she manages to maintain seemingly endless stamina throughout – and includes a compellingly seductive dance for good measure. It was gratifying to see the well-earned reception at her solo curtain.”
Additional star turns include her debut with the Staatsoper Hamburg in her performance as the title role in Elektra, Ricke in Franchetti’s Germania with Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the title role of Tosca with the Glimmerglass Opera where The New York Times praised the “cool allure [she brought] to the title role, her focused and steely voice flaring into palpable fire when it was called for.”
A tour de force on the concert stage, Ms. Lindstrom has performed with the Palacio de la Opera in La Coruña, Spain and the Aarhaus Symphony Orchestra in Denmark, both in selections by Strauss, the Glimmerglass Festival for a concert of Wagner, Union Avenue Opera in St. Louis for a gala performance, and with the San Diego Opera as their featured guest soloist in their 50th Anniversary Concert celebration. She sang John Beeman’s Dos Retablos at New York’s Bard College, Richard Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder at a gala concert in San Francisco, and Verdi’s Requiem with the Cathedral Choral Society at the Washington National Cathedral.
Born and raised in California, Ms. Lindstrom was introduced to music by her mother, a singer and music teacher. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at San Francisco State University and Master of Music degree at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
